thetadpoles.com

Today Derby was up to his usual antics of putting the medical staff through their paces. We were scheduled for the first surgery at 7:30 (meaning we had to be there at 6:30 am). After all the usual paperwork they let me bring Derby into the OR and stay with him while they gave him gas to go to sleep then I had to leave. Strabismus surgery should only take around 1 hour so I was getting anxious as 9 am rolled around. Around 9:10 a nurse said they should be bringing Derby into the recovery room and they would come get us in 5 minutes. 5 minutes came and went, 10…..30…..almost an hour later they came to get us. Another nurse said he was having trouble waking up from the anesthesia. When we got to the recovery room Derby was quietly whimpering in a most pathetic, hoarse way. I picked him up and rocked him as they told us the real story of the delay. While extubating him he had laryngospasm. He wasn’t breathing, turned blue and his O2 sats dropped into the 40′s. The anesthesiologist reintubated him and gave him a medication to paralyze him. Tadd and I had been in the waiting room and heard a dinging noise, almost like a elevator bell when all this was happening. I thought perhaps that meant the surgery was over, no that was essentially their “all hands on deck” bell and the other staff ran to the O.R. One of our admitting nurses said she ran in when Derby was blue but they were able to reintubate him quickly. Tadd and I both asked how long he was hypoxic but they said it was only seconds. The anesthesiologist waited and watched him to be sure he would recover from the second time. This made it so the other surgeries were pushed back. When we finally got to be with him his O2 sats kept dropping between 88-92% on room air. We would give him a little oxygen and he would get better but the second the mask was pulled away his sats would drop again. We were so close to being admitted to the pediatric floor for observation but after 4 long hours Derby started to recover and we were given the ok to go home. Tadd and I are so grateful with the dedication the doctors and nurses showed my little Derbyman. Now we are exhausted and toying with the idea of going to bed at 7!

You know dad, I don’t think my eyes are that crossed. Yea, I think I am seeing a little straighter now. Sooooo we can leave right now, I can see the door…

Obviously the right hand wasn’t a good place to start an I.V.

Third time was a charm.

Obviously it takes a lot longer to wake up when you’ve been given anesthetics twice.

Crying bloody tears is always a little freaky